„My body is my best teacher.” Interactions with own body in dancer’s work

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present a specific interaction between a dancer and his/her body. Such a relationship usually emerges in later stages of dancers’ careers, and is accompanied by a small number of formal rules and standards present within a certain dance community. Therefore, it rather occurs among dancers of artistic than of sport genres of dance. Dancer’s relationship with the body is created in the process of negotiating and getting to know one’s body reactions to one’s activities. The body is treated by a dancer as an actor who makes own decisions, and who is sometimes not letting the dancer to fulfill his/ her intentions, for example, these connected with social norms in certain social groups. In order to show and to compare how diverse one’s interactions with one’s body might be, I will also discuss an issue of relation with one’s own body in the autotherapeutic process. Presentation of both these problems also demonstrates two different ways of communicating with one’s own body. This article presents outcomes of a qualitative research on social construction of embodiment, which was conducted with the use of Grounded Theory Methodology and qualitative research techniques, such as: unstructured interviews, video and photo elicited interviews, analysis of visual data, analytic autoethnography, participant and non-participant observation and desk research.